Boundaries
by clair beaubien
Summary: Daniel is tired and sick and trying to go home. How does Jack always know what Daniel needs?


"_Daniel?" _

I can hear Jack's voice, coming from behind me. He sounds casual, like he's just going to ask me a question. Probably he wants to know how I'm doing. In my mind I turn to him and tell him I'm fine and he believes me and we go our separate ways and I spend the next few days trying to make the past few days all go away.

Check that. I want to make most of the last few months go away. Janet says I'm well enough to go home and rest for the entire rest of the week, and General Hammond agrees. Well, not actually '_agrees'_. Closer to '_orders'_. Janet says I shouldn't drive but I guess there's a lot of things I shouldn't do. I just want to get out of here and go home.

"Daniel?" Jack's closer now, but I haven't turned. Maybe my brain has become disconnected from the rest of my body. That might explain why all these thoughts are swirling around, filling my brain, overflowing like a sink with a blocked drain. It feels like everything that has happened this past year or so is up there, flying around, looking for some place to land. I have to turn and tell Jack that I'm okay. If I don't answer him, I don't know what he'll do. Maybe he won't do anything but wonder why I'm ignoring him.

I try to formulate some response in case he asks me. If I tell him I don't feel well, I'm afraid he'll nag me back to the infirmary. I _don't_ think I don't feel well. I'm tired, that's a given. Having your appendix out takes a bit out of you. Ordering your best friend's death takes a lot out of you, even if he survives it. SG1 has had so many close calls this one shouldn't feel any more or less remarkable, but it actually sort of does.

Jack stands beside me but doesn't say my name again. I can feel the energy coming off of him. Not warmth, not necessarily, just that palpable sensation you get when someone stands close to you. I hear elevator doors open and that's when I realize my eyes are shut, and when I feel his hand on my back I realize I should be moving forward, getting into the elevator.

This entire year I feel like all I've been doing is moving forward. Whatever happens, I pick up and move forward. Hathor shows up again? We kill her and move on. I spend time restrained in a padded cell because some loose cannon Goa'uld killing device disrupts my sanity? We discover the solution and move on. Ska'ara is freed from his Goa'uld? We celebrate and move on. Jack gets stranded on another planet for three months, then right after we find him he goes Black Ops and tells me we never had a friendship and I believe him? I pick up and go on. I lose my wife and her son and my grandfather all within in few months of each other?

"Daniel?" That's Jack's 'need to do something here' tone. I need to move forward into the elevator. He still has his hand on my back. I never liked being touched, but Jack never seemed to realize that. I open my eyes just enough to step inside before shutting them again, then by habit I turn to face the front. Jack pushes the button, then steps back away from me. Far enough away that I don't feel that energy from him.

My eyes are still closed and I'm not saying anything so Jack has to have an idea that something is wrong. But he doesn't say anything either. I don't say anything and he doesn't say anything through the long ride up to the top level. Granted, he might be respecting my silence, but if he is, it's a first.

I'm not so tired that I have to walk with my eyes closed. It's just that having my eyes open almost feels like sensory overload. Or maybe having them closed is the only way to shut out the rest of the world while I try to figure out why I need to shut out the rest of the world.

As the elevator starts to slow, indicating we're about to stop, Jack steps in front of me. I don't even know what time of the day or night it is. It can't be change of shift or there would be more people riding the elevator. Still, I have the impression that Jack is shielding me from anyone who might be standing at the elevator when the doors open. So he does know something's going on. I wonder if he has any idea what it might be, since I'm at a complete loss.

I'm tired, I know that. I'm still recovering from appendicitis. I'm still recovering from giving the order that should've blown my friends to Kingdom Come. But now I'm also aware that the swirling in my head seems to be inducing nausea. Great. Just what I need.

"All right Daniel, it's clear." That's my cue that I have to move again; that and Jack's hand under my elbow. I need to open my eyes. I need to open my eyes and to _keep_ them open because we're at the security checkpoint. I have to swipe my ID tag through the surveillance keypad then punch in my access and egress code. With my head feeling like a whirlpool and my internal organs like ice, it's not as easy as it sounds.

Col. Brennan is at the desk. He's older than Jack. He should be at home, retired on a combat-related disability, but he says he wants to work as long as he can work and that he likes talking with all the airmen at shift change. I think I nod to him as I try to conquer my ID tag and pass code. I think I nod but I can't be sure. At least the base has updated to electronic ID; if I had to sign out manually complete with the correct time I think the most I'd be able to manage would be a sketch of the clock face.

"Migraine." I hear Jack say and I realize my eyes are closed again.

"Oh geez, those are bad." Col. Brennan says. "My son gets them all the time. You take care of yourself Dr. Jackson."

When I open my eyes to acknowledge his concern, I have to turn my head to find him and the desk. He's still where he was, it's just that I'm turned at an odd angle. I smile and nod but if I have to speak I think I'll throw up. I know I don't have a headache, but I also know that I could develop one without much provocation.

"You're gonna stay with him Jack? My Jason needs complete dark and quiet. Sometimes an icepack on the back of his neck helps too."

"Yeah Tim, thanks. I'm going to keep an eye on him 'til he's back on his feet."

"Don't let him drive."

"Not a chance."

Oh good. That saves me from having to ask Jack for a ride, which would require me to speak, which could result in 'décor a la commissary' all over the walls. I can't remember when I became nauseous, which could mean I've felt that way all day. I also can't remember when I decided I needed Jack to drive me home.

"Daniel." Jack takes my arm again and steers me to the door that opens into the hallway that leads to the underground parking ramp. The 'under mountain' parking ramp. He keeps hold of my arm and I walk with my eyes closed as long as I can. I open them once but the image of the floor rolling beneath me as we walk threatens to turn my eyes backwards in my head. That would be a very bad thing. So I let Jack keep guiding me by holding onto my arm.

I never liked being touched. Which could explain my dating history. The Abydonians are a very tactile people though, and they are very sensitive to rudeness, so I became accustomed to and even grew to appreciate their spontaneous hugs and touches and complete absence of the idea of personal space. And I just melted into Sha'are.

"Daniel?" We must be at the next guard station, just outside the door to the parking ramp. I have to open my eyes again, show my pass, prove that Jack isn't abducting me.

"You okay Dr. Jackson?" The guard asks me. Please don't make me have to talk. "Migraine." Jack answers for me again. I wonder, if he says it often enough, if I'll actually _get_ a migraine.

"Whoa Dude," is the guard's illuminative reply.

"I know, like radical hunh?" Jack answers back and despite the cyclone in my brain and the increasing probability that I will lose my lunch, I have to open my eyes to look at 'Valley Girl' Jack. He catches my gaze and shrugs.

"C'mon, my truck is this way."

Jack frequently boasts about his 'primo parking spot', right near the doorway here. I frequently respond that he was given that space in deference to his knees. Right now I'm thankful for his bad knees and good parking spot because as soon as I'm in his truck I won't have to walk, talk, or try to think up plausible excuses anymore.

I hear the guard say, "Take it easy man," and I nod even though my brain feels incredibly heavy in my skull. Only by being unconscious will I consider anything to be 'easy' again.

It's only a few steps to Jack's truck and once he places my hand on the side of it, I guide myself to the passenger door and get in. Nothing has ever felt as good to me as shutting that door and leaning back against the cushioned headrest.

Jack gets in and closes his door. He must think he shut it too hard, too loudly, because he says, "Sorry." I brave my nausea to tell him,

"I don't actually have a headache you know."

"I know. Still – I'm sorry."

I have this impulse to reach over and pat his shoulder, in concern or gratitude I don't know, but I don't give in to the impulse. I generally don't like to touch people. Unless I can't help it and they've been dead several thousand years. Even on Abydos, except for Sha'are, as friendly and open and non-judgmental as the Abydonians are, I could never easily return their gestures of affection.

Jack starts the truck and we drive out of the mountain, passing another couple of checkpoints that fortunately I don't need to participate in, and then we're outside again, finally.

Apparently it's daylight and when Jack cracks his window open I can smell warm, fresh, springtime air, so I crack my window a little bit too. Breathing it in makes me feel better, less sick, so I open my eyes to see how it goes. Not too bad, not perfect, but when Jack talks to me, I can answer him.

"My place, hunh?"

He isn't asking if that's where I want to go; he's telling me that that's where he's taking me.

"Thanks."

I could go home; that would be fine. Jack could drop me off at my building and I could find my way up to my apartment and go inside and spend the next few days watching television and avoiding people. That would be fine; make a pot of coffee, plug in a nice long tape about Egypt or the Mayans or even crop circles sometimes, and work on the endless translations that the SG teams bring back. That would be fine. Generally I work better alone. I'm used to it.

I'm used to it.

I'm used to being alone but I don't like it and that's kind of like a fish saying it doesn't like to be wet, or a pyramid not wanting to be ancient anymore. I don't want to be alone but – I _am_ alone. Since Mom and Dad died, I feel like I've been inside this bubble, inside an invisible barrier that keeps bouncing me from place to place and is always between me and everyone else.

People always seem to see or sense or recognize that bubble, that barrier. Rarely does anyone try to cross it. It's always something, there's always some reason people don't try to get past it. I'm too smart, too stupid, too shy, too assertive, I talk too much, I don't talk enough; there always seems to be something about me that doesn't quite mesh with the people I'm with and they obviously don't see anything worth crossing the boundaries for.

Well, Sha'are never seemed to notice the boundaries. Anyway, for her, I willingly abandoned my hiding place. And yes, I was different to the Abydonians so there was that barrier between us, but they wanted to breach it and I let them. And I can say with real affection that Robert Rothman is one of the few people geekier than I am. Like me, he loses himself in his work and could survive longer without people than without ancient ruins to study.

But since Abydos, before then and since Abydos, even at the SGC, sometimes I feel like a record that plays too fast for other people to catch all the words correctly. I remember something I read about Abraham Lincoln once, the author said that what people disliked most about him was "his intellectual arrogance and unconscious assumption of superiority." Maybe that's my trouble. My bubble.

It's not on purpose, I'm not this way on purpose. I'm not trying to impress people with my intelligence or my knowledge. I never think of or present myself as the only one who could possibly know or understand or unravel the myriad problems and conundrums we face on a regular basis.

Well, OK, there are times when I might emphasize my point of view when I know I'm right about a particular subject or issue. But only when I _know_ I'm right. Or at least have a very strong feeling that I'm right. Maybe I think I'm always right.

I find I can keep my eyes open and watch the scenery going by. I like this stretch of highway, along the river. Maybe because it's the stretch of road that takes me to Jack's house.

Why is Jack taking me to his place anyway? Why am I going? I suppose that, aside from the most pressing fact that arguing with him would require me to speak and I'm not sure yet that prolonged speech is hygienically possible, I'm going with him because I don't want to be alone. And Jack is so blissfully unaware of my self-imposed barriers he doesn't know that he shouldn't _want_ to take me.

There are rumors, buried in the piles of paperwork that regulated my life in foster care, that people who knew Mom and Dad described me as a happy, outgoing boy. I'm pretty sure that boy died with his parents. At a very young age, I could understand the legal system of the ancient Egyptians, but I never understood how a ten year old classmate could call me his best friend one day, and then say he hated me the next. I never understood why jocks being bullies was called 'boys being boys' and when I protested I was 'sensitive' or – worse – 'different.'

So I started cultivating those barriers, those boundaries, as much to keep me away from other people as to keep people away from me. I developed countless subtle and not so subtle ways of pushing people away until it just became second nature to me. So friends didn't last, or didn't even take root, and it didn't matter because I could always occupy myself with another discovery or translation or graduate degree.

The truck slows and I open my eyes to see what's going on but it's just a stop sign at an intersection. We're re-entering civilization.

"We're almost home." Jack says. "I just want to stop at the corner store and get you some ginger ale for your stomach."

"How'd you know I feel nauseous?" I have to ask. Jack gives me a '_please_' look.

"You keep swallowing, you can't make eye contact, and you're as white as a sheet. You're either nauseous or you're about to propose to me." He smiles then and reaches over to pat my shoulder. I have to smile too; Jack can come up with the most bizarre analogies. I close my eyes again.

I never liked being touched and Jack never seemed to realize that. Always, every mission, every day even, there's a touch on my arm at the very least, or an arm around my shoulders when Jack is in one of his more expansive moods. He has on occasion given me a hug. And what he did for me in that supply closet two years ago is still hard for me to think about. But touch, closeness, even friendship, these are all things I have avoided and even fought off for most of my life and I wonder how Jack can't see the boundary lines. Sometimes I wonder how he could've gotten so far in the military when he can't read people as well as he ought to. Or maybe the difference is that I'm civilian and most of the people he deals with are military. Maybe it's easier for a military person to read a military person.

If Jack could read me, if he could see or sense the barriers I put up, the boundaries I stake out in my life, he'd never put his arm around my shoulders or give me a pat on the back, he'd never bring me coffee unasked then spend a half hour or more in my office getting me to talk about things that hold no interest for him whatsoever just because I'm having a bad day. He'd never call me 'Danny' or 'Danny Boy' or 'Space Monkey', and he certainly never would've stayed with me during my meltdown in the supply room.

Sure, I appreciate all that, I _want_ it even, but I've always pushed it away and if Jack could read me as well as you'd think he could –

"Danny, I'll be right out. Don't wander off." We've stopped, I didn't realize that. We're in the parking lot of a convenience store. Jack pats my shoulder again before he gets out of the truck and he pushes the door shut as quietly as he can.

I never liked being called 'Danny', not since Mom and Dad used to call me that. Teachers and social workers and foster parents would try, but I would insist on being called Daniel. It sounded stronger to me I think. And it wasn't as easy to bastardize into embarrassing rhymes. I had a teacher in college though, my first linguistics teacher, she called me 'Danny' and I actually liked it, until another student helpfully informed her that I preferred Daniel. I was young back then and instead of knowing enough to tell her "Only _you_ can call me Danny," I stupidly agreed with the other student and she never called me it again. Nobody called me it again until Jack.

He doesn't call me that very often, which is actually nice. Because then when he does call me Danny, it means something.

That sounds stupid. It sounds pathetic actually which is no doubt another reason I never let anyone call me Danny – because I actually _liked_ it and I didn't want anyone to know that I liked it because I didn't want anybody to know anything about me.

I hear Jack set something into the bed of the truck then he gets in himself.

"Miss me?" he asks.

"As often as I can." I answer back from behind my closed eyes.

"Smart guy." He says, but I can hear the smile in his voice. He starts the truck and we're on our way again. From this convenience store, it's maybe another ten minutes to Jack's house. I'm feeling better than I was at the mountain. Could be the passage of time. Could be the distance I'm putting between me and the SGC and the past several months.

So maybe if I'm admitting I like _some_ people to call me Danny, maybe I should admit that I like the hugs and taps and physical encouragement Jack gives. They don't make me pull away like he's got Khepers. Even after the incident in the storage closet, when I would've been embarrassed to be around any other person who had seen me break down that completely, Jack's concern and friendship never felt - it never made me wish I was anywhere else. That's never been easy for me to come by. So I guess I should be thankful that Jack never noticed my boundaries because if he had, he'd have never given me exactly what I needed anyway. If I didn't know better I'd almost think -

I look at Jack and it hits me. Jack _does_ know those boundaries exist. He didn't happen to blunder through them, oblivious to their existence. Jack can see them. Not only can he see them, he can see _through_ them. He knows exactly when, where, and how to cross them. He knows my boundaries and he uses them to his advantage.

"_Oh_."

I must say it with some surprise because he looks sharply at me and asks, "Do you need me to pull over?" He must think I'm finally going to be sick.

"No. No I'm – no. Something just – hit me."

"Finally got that migraine did you?"

"No, no. I think I finally got the picture."

"And that picture would _be_?" he asks.

"That you're not entirely clueless."

He thinks about this for a short minute, torn I'm sure between being insulted and not being insulted.

"And this startling bit of illumination hit you - ?"

I don't know what to answer. Can I tell him the truth? Should I give him some rude yet plausible come back? I can't take too long to answer or he'll know something's wrong.

"You know how the older kids get, the smarter adults become. That's all."

The look he gives me makes me wonder if he's related to Teal'c.

"You could stop getting older very quickly." He informs me, and adds "_Very_ quickly. I _know_ people."

"I know the same people."

"Yes but – they _like_ me better."

"Yes they do." I have to agree.

We pull into his driveway. I get out, feeling my appendectomy scar pull as I straighten up.

"Can you make it to the house OK?" Jack asks me and when I nod he tosses me his keys. "I'll bring in the groceries."

"Groceries? I thought you were just getting ginger ale."

"I do expect to _feed_ you while you're here. You're not going to stay sick forever." Then he gives me a look. "_Are_ you?"

"Oh I hope not. I have so much work piled up since my appendix…"

"_Daniel_." Jack sounds stressed, like I'm about to walk into traffic. "No work – _relax_. Remember that's what Janet said before she turned you loose?"

"Work _is_ relaxing for me." I tell him.

"_Daniel_." This time it's his 'don't make me come over there' tone of voice.

I intend to make another joke back to him, because I _am_ kidding. Not that work isn't relaxing, but I didn't bring any with me. I only said it because I knew I'd get a rise out of him. But then everything I've been thinking about since leaving the mountain crops up again and all I can do is turn away and walk to the house. Now though, instead of wondering whether Jack even knows that anything is wrong, the way I felt at the mountain, now I feel more exposed to him than I even did on the floor of the supply closet, when I was sick and tired and literally crying on his shoulder.

Not that Jack _always_ gets it, always gets me, that's certainly not the case. He can be short, blunt, dismissive, annoying, argumentative, and just a general pain in the ass sometimes. But in spite of all that, or even possibly because of it, he's been the most understanding, supportive, patient, constant friend I've ever had. His Black Ops mission aside, he's never left me in the dark when he could explain something, he's never left me alone when he could offer me encouragement. He's never required an apology from me and he's never not offered me an apology, even if it's in his own particular way. I know he always tries to protect me, even if it's from myself, even if I heatedly disagree. And even when he thinks _I'm_ being a pain in the ass, he's never walked away from me.

Maybe he reminds me of my Dad. Oooh, I'm going to have to save _that_ one for a _special_ occasion.

By the time I get to Jack's front door, my thoughts are full of this past year and all the 'what ifs' and 'should've beens' and 'why me's' that thinking of what's happened always stirs up. My hands are shaking and my eyes are tearing up and the harder I try to fit the key into the lock the worse luck I have with it.

Sure, the one barrier I really _want_ to cross and I can't do it.

Then Jack is beside me. He shifts the grocery bag he's carrying to the other arm and puts his hand over mine to get the key.

"I can do it." I insist.

"I know you can." He answers. I let him take the key and in a few moments we're inside. My eyes are closed again. I stop in the entrance hall and Jack goes ahead into the kitchen.

"Daniel?" That's Jack's 'tell me what's wrong' tone, his concerned tone.

"Maybe I should've gone home." I tell him. I open my eyes to look at him. "The way I feel, I'm probably only going to spend the next whole day in bed anyway."

Jack looks at me a moment, but only says, "Sit down and have some ginger ale."

So I go to the kitchen table and sit down. I feel like I can't even sit up straight.

Jack sets a glass of ginger ale and a plate of saltine crackers in front of me. Then he takes the chair across from me.

"What's going on?"

"I'm just tired." I take a sip of ginger ale and pick up a cracker, but I don't eat it.

"Daniel, if you wanted to spend the entire next week sleeping, that's fine. I didn't bring you here for your scintillating personality; I brought you here so you could rest. But I've never known you to sleep more than six and a half hours at a time, unless it's the result of major surgery or alien interference."

So I take a bite of cracker then. It's either that or actually answer Jack which I don't think I can do immediately. But Jack waits for my answer. Eating a cracker isn't going to put him off, I remind myself. Or taking a sip of ginger ale which I have to do anyway to clear the cracker out of my mouth.

"It's been kind of a bad year." I tell him.

" '_Kind of?'_" He asks. "Daniel, for you, I think this year qualifies for the Guinness Book of Bad Years."

What can I say? It's been eight months since I irrevocably lost Sha'are. If nothing else at all bad had happened to me, it would _still_ be the worst year of my life. I drink some soda pop to buy myself some time.

"I'm sorry Daniel. I didn't mean it to come out that way. You _have_ had a bad year and I shouldn't be trivializing it."

I just continue to eat the cracker, staring at the table top. Jack gets up and pats my shoulder and I hear him emptying the grocery bag.

"If that ginger ale makes you feel better, I'm gonna make mac and cheese for dinner. I think that won't be as much a shock to your system as, say, _tacos_."

That's one of the things I like about Jack. If something is wrong and I can't talk about it, he can go on like nothing's wrong until I _can_ talk about it, or at least until I can change the subject.

Better yet, he throws out oblique suggestions of things I might be able to talk about, like the macaroni and cheese. I like Jack's macaroni and cheese. He puts tomatoes in it for me.

"Tomatoes?" I ask even though I know the answer, and he holds up what has to be the Mother of All Tomatoes.

"Think this'll do?"

"It's a good start." I tell him, but my voice isn't as strong as I'd like it to be. Then for awhile it's quiet, me at the kitchen table, drinking ginger ale and eating crackers, and Jack at the stove, drinking a beer and making macaroni and cheese. I don't even feel like doing any work right now, so I _know_ I'm tired and not feeling well.

So help me, if I end this day crying on Jack's shoulder I'm _not_ going to be happy.

"How're you doing?" Jack asks after awhile.

"Better. I don't feel so sick anymore."

"Good."

He serves up the macaroni and cheese and tomatoes, along with some green beans and 'pop & bake' biscuits. Before I start eating, I mentally offer up the Abydonian blessing. It's short but to the point, thanking 'the good God for good food'. They developed that one _after_ Ra.

"How'd you know I only sleep six and a half hours a night?" I ask him. I'm surprised myself by the question; I wasn't aware I was going to ask it. Jack gives me a completely puzzled look.

"We've had overnight missions lots of times. I know you sleep on your side for six and a half hours, just like I know Carter gets the full eight whenever possible, sleeping on her back in what I've learned is called 'the princess posture'." He rolls his eyes at that, and then shrugs. "What's not to know?"

Considering all I've realized today about my relationship with Jack, I have to ask him, "What _don't_ you know about me?"

He thinks about it a moment, puzzling intently. Then he smiles and gestures like he's handing me something.

"Color! I don't know what your favorite color is. Though being an archeologist I suppose it's something in sand or mummy."

"My favorite color _is_ brown." I tell him, but it's the brown that was the color of Sha'are's eyes. "Anything else you don't know?" He gets serious.

"Lots I expect. I learn something new about you all the time." He looks at me a moment, a forkful of macaroni and tomato waiting in mid air. "Where're we going with this?"

"Nowhere."

He gives me the Teal'c look again.

"No, it's just that I've always felt excluded from other people, like a – like a -."

"Like a 'closed book'?" He offers.

"Yeah. Like a closed book. Or a book no one can read. That no one _wants_ to read. And it's just with everything that's been going on today, this afternoon, it's just that I just realized that you – that you -." I stalled there, fearing a repeat of the storage closet.

"That I have a card to that library?" He asks. He can have the oddest yet most apt analogies.

As I think about what I want to tell him, I'm torn between laughing and crying so I let myself give a short laugh of irony.

"I've never known anybody who showed he cared so much for what I _needed_ by caring so little for what I _wanted_."

Jack doesn't answer me right away, he's just looking at me and I have to wonder what he's thinking. I turn my head down to stare at my plate. That's a habit I learned young, when I had to learn how not to incur the wrath of one of my foster fathers. First and foremost: make no eye contact.

But I'm not staring down at my green beans for very long when Jack says,

"I'm not always perfect at it, though. Am I?"

He sounds sincerely apologetic, but with visions of storage closets still in my head, I'm not inclined to be too serious. I answer him dramatically, "Well, no. Of course not. I mean - _please_."

That has my desired effect of making Jack laugh.

"You've come closer than anybody else ever has." I have to tell him anyway. I don't want to get serious, I don't want to embarrass him, or myself, but I want him to know. "I've thrown up all these boundaries in my life. I always have, since I lost Mom and Dad. And maybe once in awhile other people have tried to get through but I've always done my darnedest to keep them out and it's always worked. But not with you. You never stopped where you were supposed to. No one has ever not stopped before."

"That's because other people do see your boundaries as the place where they have to stop. _You_ see your boundaries as the place where other people have to stop. To me Daniel, boundaries are the place where _you start_. And if I want to be your friend, your boundaries have to be the place where _I_ start too."

Okay. Not the answer I'm expecting. Actually I have no idea _what_ answer I was expecting, except that I know that wasn't it. I'm staring at him, and he's watching me, and finally all the answer I can give him is,

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah – uh, yeah. Nobody's ever – I've never – thought of it that way."

I try to go back to eating and Jack eats some more too. Then he says,

"So you're admitting I know something you don't."

I give him my own Teal'c impression.

"It _sounded_ like you were saying I know something you don't know." Then he offers helpfully, "I'm making a list."

"Jack, I'm sure that the entire list of everything you know that I don't would fill a -."

"Ah – be nice." He tells me. I intend to be _very_ nice.

"It would fill a library."

"For _that_, you get dessert. Your favorite."

"Feteer meshaltet?" I ask. Egyptian shortbread. That stops Jack cold.

"Banana cream pie?" He tries, a bit cautiously.

"Even better."

He starts to clear the dishes and I start to help him and I get scolded again.

"Daniel, _sit_. Y'think I want to get into trouble for letting you fall on your face? Replicators have _nothing_ on Fraiser."

So I sit and I close my eyes and offer another Abydonian prayer. Thanking the good God for good friends.

The end.


End file.
